Reg Butler: Towards a New World

Reg Butler

Reg Butler

Reg Butler: Towards a New World

Marlborough Fine Art London 6 Albemarle Street

London W1S 4BY

+ 44 (0) 20 7629 5161 marlboroughgallerylondon.com

Associated Galleries

Marlborough Gallery

545 West 25th Street

New York, NY 10001

+ 1 212 541 4900 marlboroughnewyork.com

Galería Marlborough Madrid

Orfila, 5 28010 Madrid, Spain

+34 91 319 1414 galeriamarlborough.com

Reg Butler in his studio

© The Estate of Reg Butler

Acknowledgements

Marlborough would like to thank the Estate of Reg Butler, Cortina Butler, and Creon Butler, the artist’s children, for their invaluable insight and for providing archival material. Research has heavily drawn from Margaret Garlake’s authoritative monograph, The Sculpture of Reg Butler, 2006 from which we are very grateful to be able to reproduce an extract.

With thanks to Mariah Tarvainen for designing the publication and a special thanks to Alejandro Freites, a long-standing supporter and friend of the Butler family.

Matt Kirkum

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

Towards a New World

16 March – 22 April, 2023

Curated by Matt Kirkum

Marlborough Fine Art London

6 Albemarle Street

London W1S 4BY + 44 (0) 20 7629 5161 marlboroughgallerylondon.com

A Sculptor’s Life

© Margaret Garlake

All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Research: Matt Kirkum and Nina Ledwoch

Editors: Marissa Moxley and Lukas Hall

Design: Mariah Tarvainen

Photography: Todd-White Art Photography

Printing and Binding: Permanent Press

All works © The Estate of Reg Butler

Archival photography © The Estate of Reg Butler

© 2023 Marlborough Fine Art London

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and retrieval systems—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper—without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Edition

ISBN: 978-0-89797-428-8

Extract from a letter from Reg Butler to Pierre Matisse, January 1959

The problem in writing about art is not, as one might well suppose, that it is difficult; but that it is dangerous. Statements have a way of becoming untrue by the very act of clarification, and this, I am convinced is the reason why critics are so frequently accused of wilful obscurity.

When a man falls in love, he seeks to find adequate verbal expression for his feelings. Yet, since he cannot find strong enough words to express the intensity of his emotions, he extends his conception of the moment, and vows eternal devotion, often with bitter consequences.

Writing about art presents, I am convinced, very much the same kind of difficulty; particularly in the case of the artist himself. Obviously because the artist, whenever he writes, inevitably becomes involved in verbalising his intentions; and there is nothing he hates more than committing himself to declare intentions. For me the mere act of declaration is itself destructive.

The reason for this, is I suppose, that for most of us our intentions only become apparent during the actual process of working, and a declaration made beforehand is consequently a restriction on our freedom to explore. Myself, for instance, I frequently say the way to make sculpture is by making sculpture: to find out what kind of sculpture I am going to make I must make it, and while this may well be quite untrue, nevertheless it does avoid declaration; and anyway, if put to it, I can usually justify such a statement.

This sort of attitude is I think very relevant to a present day conception of the visual arts; for the history of the last hundred years suggests that art is increasingly becoming understood as some kind of involuntary, compulsive consequence of the state of being human.

Sculpture, for example, while seen as an illusion as well as an object—a falsification of nature ultimately to become a part of nature in its own right—is also comprehended as something quite undetachable from its maker; a part of his history. For we can see how as never before, that art is the mark of man with its beginnings and ends delineated and circumscribed by human nature alone.

As man’s sexual customs and taboos are the inescapable consequence of his biological and cultural evolution—so that were we an egglaying species all would be different—so it would seem that his most cherished aesthetic canon are but the consequence of his history.

It is, I am convinced, a profound mistake, to approach an understanding of art through assessments of whether it is “true”, or “false”—whether or not it “represents”. For, most of all a sculpture is the mark a man makes on the walls of his cell to consume his boredom or assuage his fear; to expiate his guilt or simply to record the passing of his time. The marks are what they are and not in any important sense a proposition about…

Naturally, in a secondary sense, information may be gathered about the artist’s mind from an examination of his mark; and further,

it would seem reasonable to suppose that quite a lot could be discovered about the society of which he is part. But deductions of this kind, while of interest to psychologists and sociologists are beside the point aesthetically.

The aesthetic question is alone the peculiar province of art, and the plain fact is that some men make ugly marks and others beautiful marks; and the equation which links the artist, the work and the observer is heavily loaded with subjectivity at both ends.

What therefore, believing this, can I say about my own work? Very little, except that it is my mark, my autobiography; and that perhaps to some extent, it may be part of the biography of my time…that the degree in which it may be more than a purely local and personal mark will be the true measure of its success or failure.

Reg Butler creating a sculpture

Bird 1951 – 52

shell bronze, ed. 2 of 4 161/8 × 105/8 × 77/8 in. / 41 × 27 × 20 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Collectors’ Items from Artists’ Studios. ICA, London, United Kingdom. 5 August – 6 September 1953. Cat. 14. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. April – June 1954. Cat. 3. Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 19 (plaster). Reg Butler Musée Imaginaire: Bronze Middle and Later Period. Gimpel Fils, London, United Kingdom. 10 September – 11 October 1986. Cat. 6. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 1.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 91; reproduced in black and white, p. 130.

Rosamind Julius

1951 – 52

shell bronze, ed. 2 of 4

167/8 × 63/4 × 85/8 in. / 43 × 17 × 22 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Reg Butler, Bruno Cassinari, Jan Cox, Irving Kriesberg, Alton Pickens.

Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, New York, United States.

26 May – 19 June 1953. Cat. 6.

Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, New York, United States.

11 January – 5 February 1955. Cat. 8, as ‘Rosamond’.

Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom,

16 November 1983 – 15 January 1984. Cat. 29.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 2.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 92; reproduced in black and white, p. 130.

Study for St Catherine 1953

shell bronze and wire, unique 22 × 331/2 × 15 in. / 56 × 85 × 38 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. April – June 1954. Cat. 3. Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, New York, United States. 11 January – 5 February 1955. Cat. 26, as ’St Catherine’. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 5.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 134; reproduced in black and white, p. 140.

Study for Sculpture—St Catherine 1953

shell bronze and wire, unique 113/4 × 173/4 × 77/8 in. / 30 × 45 × 20 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. April – June 1954. Cat. 32, as ’Study for a Sculpture’.

Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, New York, United States. January – February 1955. Cat. 27, as ’St Catherine’.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 4, as ’Study for Figure Falling’.

Reg Butler: Decent Sculpture. Gerhard Marcks Haus, Bremen, Germany.

26 November 2006 – 18 February 2007. Exhibition travelled to Museum Beelden

Aan Zee, Scheveningen, The Netherlands. 16 March – 17 June 2007.

Literature:

Calvocoressi, Richard. “Reg Butler: The Man and the Work” in Reg Butler, exh. cat. London: Tate Gallery, 1983, pp. 16 – 17.

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 137; reproduced in black and white, p. 140.

Study for Third Watcher 1954

bronze, ed. 6 of 8

283/8 × 173/4 × 105/8 in. / 72 × 45 × 27 cm

Provenance

Hanover Gallery, 1957

Joseph Hirshorn, 1957

Private Collection

Exhibited

Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, New York, United States.

11 January – 5 February 1955. Cat. 34.

Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. May – June 1957. Cat. 7. Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 55.

The Gregory Fellows; Reg Butler, Martin Froy, Kenneth Armitage, Terry Frost, Hubert Dalwood, Alan Davie, Trevor Bell, Austin Wright. Arts Council Gallery, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 8 – 29 February 1964. Cat. 2.

Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom. 16 November 1983 – 15 January 1984. Cat. 49.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 144; reproduced in black and white, fig. 56. p. 65.

Hyman, James. The Battle for Realism: Figurative Art in Britain during the Cold War 1945 – 1960, New Haven and London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2001.

Fetish 1954

bronze, ed. 6 of 8

227/8 × 57/8 × 57/8 in. / 58 × 15 × 15 cm

Provenance

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, New York, United States. 11 January – 5 February 1955. Cat. 35.

Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. May – June 1957. Cat. 8.

Reg Butler Musée Imaginaire: Bronze Middle and Later Period. Gimpel Fils, London, United Kingdom. 10 September – 11 October 1986. Cat. 7.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 145; reproduced in black and white, p. 141.

Study for Girl 1954

bronze, unnumbered from edition of 8 215/8 × 9 × 9 in. / 55 × 23 × 23 cm

Provenance Private Collection

Exhibited

Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, New York, United States. January – February 1955. Cat. 37.

Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. May – June 1957. Cat. 9. Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 57.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 9.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 146; reproduced in black and white, p. 142.

Girl (Striding Girl)

1954

bronze, ed. 6 of 8

221/2 × 141/8 × 101/4 in. / 57 × 36 × 26 cm

Provenance

Hanover Gallery, 1963 Private Collection, 1997

Exhibited

Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, New York, United States. January – February 1955. Cat. 36.

Art of the XX Century: International Exhibition, Documenta I.

Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany. Cat. 81.

Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. May – June 1957. Cat. 10.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. 22 May – 5 June 1983.

Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom. November 1983 – January 1984. Cat. 50.

Reg Butler Musée Imaginaire: Bronze Middle and Later Period

Gimpel Fils, London, United Kingdom. 10 September – 11 October 1986. Cat. 8.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 9.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 147; reproduced in black and white, p. 142.

Manipulator

1954 – 56

shell bronze, unnumbered edition of 6 707/8 × 281/8 × 201/8 in. / 180 × 71.5 × 51 cm

Provenance

Family of Walter Bareiss

Connaught Brown, London, 2006 Private Collection, 2011 Private Collection, 2020

Exhibited

Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, New York, United States.

11 January – 5 February 1955. Cat. 42.

The Gregory Fellowship Exhibition. Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, United Kingdom. August – September 1958. Cat. 2 (plaster).

Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. October 1961 – January 1962. Cat. 464.

Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom, 16 November 1983 – 15 January 1984. Cat. 51.

Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 56.

Contemporary British Painting and Sculpture. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, United States. October – November 1963. Cat. 56.

Frank & Cherryl Cohen at Chatsworth. Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, United Kingdom. March – June 2012. Cat. 16.

In The Shadow of War. Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom. November 2014 – February 2015.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. New Art New World: British Art in Postwar Society

New Haven and London: Yale University for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 1998. p. 198.

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 149; reproduced in black and white, fig. 39, p. 47.

Girl on Back, 2 1956

bronze, ed. 1 of 8 9 × 97/8 × 43/8 in. / 23 × 25 × 11 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. May – June 1957. Cat. 29. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 18.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 170; reproduced in black and white, p. 148.

Head and Shoulders (Arm Up)

1956

bronze, ed. 5 of 8

133/8 × 43/8 × 33/4 in. / 34 × 11 × 9.5 cm

Provenance

Hanover Gallery

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Private Collection

Exhibited

Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. May – June 1957. Cat. 32.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 173; reproduced in black and white, p. 149.

Woman in Stays

1956

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

201/8 × 51/2 × 43/4 in. / 51 × 14 × 12 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection, 1991

Exhibited

Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. May – June 1957. Cat. 33. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 15.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 174; reproduced in black and white, p. 149.

Woman

1957 – 58

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

673/4 × 15 × 167/8 in. / 172 × 38 × 43 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Sculpture & Drawings 1954 – 1958. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. February 1959. Cat. 19.

Reg Butler: Sculpture. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. June – July 1960. Cat. 24.

Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 81.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 20.

Escultura Inglesa de Posguerra. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. August – September 2006. Cat. 11.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd. Cat. 182; reproduced in black and white, p. 151.

[14] Figure in Space

1957 – 59

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

571/8 × 61 × 393/8 in. / 145 × 155 × 100 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Sculpture. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. June – July 1960. Cat. 6.

Sculpture in the Open Air. London County Council, Battersea Park, London, United Kingdom. 1960. Cat. 7.

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 1.

Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 82.

Painting & Sculpture of a Decade, 54 64. Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom. 22 April – 28 June 1964. Cat. 169.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 19. Reg Butler: Decent Sculpture. Gerhard Marcks Haus, Bremen, Germany. 26 November 2006 – 18 February 2007. Exhibition travelled to Museum Beelden

Aan Zee, Scheveningen, The Netherlands. 16 March – 17 June 2007.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 183; reproduced in black and white, p. 151.

Circus 1959

bronze, ed. 5 of 8

207/8 × 57/8 × 51/2 in. / 53 × 15 × 14 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection, 1991

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Sculpture. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. June – July 1960. Cat. 3.

Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture

Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. October 1961 – January 1962. Cat. 459.

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 4, as ’Study for Circus’. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 21, as ’Study for Circus’.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 187; reproduced in black and white, p. 152.

Seated Girl

1959 – 60

bronze, ed. 5 of 8

361/4 × 475/8 × 27 1/8 in. / 92 × 121 × 69 cm

Provenance

Acquavella Modern Art

Private Collection, 21 February 1992

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Sculpture. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom.

June – July 1960. Cat. 30.

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. 30 October – 17 November 1962. Cat. 8.

Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 95.

Escultura Inglesa de Posguerra. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela.

13 August – 17 September 2006. Cat. 13.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 194; reproduced in black and white, p. 192.

Study for Girl with a Vest 1959

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

215/8 × 51/8 × 51/8 in. / 55 × 13 × 13 cm

Provenance

Madeleine Haas Russel

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Private Collection, 2001

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Sculpture. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. June – July 1960. Cat. 28.

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 12.

The Gregory Fellows; Reg Butler, Martin Froy, Kenneth Armitage, Terry Frost, Hubert Dalwood, Alan Davie, Trevor Bell, Austin Wright. Arts Council Gallery, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 8 – 29 February 1964. Cat. 4.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 196; reproduced in black and white, p. 155.

Melville, Robert. “In connection with the sculpture of Reg Butler.” Motif, No. 6, (Spring 1961): 27 – 39.

Girl 59 Chrysanthemum

1959

bronze, ed. 8 of 8

211/4 × 57/8 × 51/8 in. / 54 × 15 × 13 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection, 1991

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Sculpture. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. June – July 1960. Cat. 27.

Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. October 1961 – January 1962. Cat. 462.

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 14.

Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 89, as ‘Girl Chrysanthemum X’. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 22 as ‘Girl 59 Chrysanthemum X’.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 198; reproduced in black and white, p. 156.

Study for a Girl 1959

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

133/8 × 4 × 43/4 in. / 34 × 10 × 12 cm

Provenance Private Collection, 1992

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Sculpture. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. June – July 1960. Cat. 9.

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 15.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 199; reproduced in black and white, p. 156.

Study for Figure Bending, 2

1959

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

221/2 × 113/4 × 81/4 in. / 57 × 30 × 21 cm

Provenance

Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Ralf Colin

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Private Collection, 1995

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Sculpture. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. June – July 1960. Cat. 4.

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 16.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 200; reproduced in black and white, p. 156.

Page, A. F. “Contemporary British and Canadian Art.” Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 42, no. 1 (1962): 9 – 13; reproduced in black and white, p. 10.

Study for Head of Circus 1959

bronze, ed. 2 of 8 81/4 × 23/8 × 2 in. / 21 × 6 × 5 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Sculpture. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom.

June – July 1960. Cat. 17.

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 18.

Reg Butler Musée Imaginaire: Bronze Middle and Later Period. Gimpel Fils, London, United Kingdom. 10 September – 11 October 1986. Cat. 12. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 23.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 202; reproduced in black and white, p. 157.

Study for the Italian Girl, 3 1960

bronze, ed. 8 of 8 71/8 × 167/8 × 71/8 in. / 18 × 43 × 18 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Sculpture. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. June – July 1960. Cat. 16.

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 23.

Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 93.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 26.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 207; reproduced in black and white, fig. 59, p. 67.

Cassandra 1960

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

215/8 × 57/8 × 57/8 in. / 55 × 15 × 15 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection, 1991

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 24 (dated 1960). Reg Butler: Sculpture and Drawings. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. July – September 1963. Cat. 1 (dated 1961).

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 25, p. 31.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 208; reproduced in black and white, p. 158.

1954 – 61

bronze, ed. 8 of 8

931/4 × 193/4 × 167/8 in. / 237 × 50 × 43 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection, 1991

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 26.

Open-Air Exhibition of Contemporary British and American Works. Battersea Park, London, United Kingdom. May – September 1963. Cat. 7.

Reg Butler: Sculpture and Drawings. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. July – September 1963. Cat. 3.

Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 94, as ‘The Bride’.

Contemporary British Sculpture: an open-air exhibition arranged by the Arts Council of Great Britain. Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, United Kingdom.

April – May 1964. Cat. 4. Exhibition travelled to Haworth Art Gallery, Acrrington, United Kingdom May – June 1964; Wollaston Hall, Wollaston, United Kingdom, June – July 1964; Imperial Gardens, Cheltenham, United Kingdom, July 1964; Albert Park, Middlesborough, United Kingdom, July – August 1964; and Lister Park, Bradford, United Kingdom, August – September 1964.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 8, as ‘The Bride’, p. 20. Escultura Inglesa de Posguerra. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela.

August – September 2006. Cat. 12, as ‘The Bride’, p. 25.

Reg Butler: Decent Sculpture. Gerhard Marcks Haus, Bremen, Germany.

26 November 2006 – 18 February 2007. Exhibition travelled to Museum Beelden

Aan Zee, Scheveningen, The Netherlands, 16 March – 17 June 2007.

Literature

Calvocoressi, Richard. “Reg Butler: The Man and the Work” in Reg Butler, exh. cat. London: Tate Gallery, 1983, pp 16-17.

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 211, p. 159; reproduced in black and white, p. 83.

Kelleger, Patrick J. Living with Modern Sculpture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.

Macaw’s Head

1960 – 62

bronze, ed. 5 of 8

393/8 × 201/8 × 145/8 in. / 100 × 51 × 37 cm

Provenance

Hanover Gallery Private Collection

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 30.

Reg Butler: Sculpture and Drawings. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. July – September 1963. Cat. 7.

Reg Butler: A Retrospective Exhibition. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 22 October – 1 December 1963. Cat. 97.

Literature

Forma, Warren. 5 British Sculptors (work and talk). New York: Grossman Publishers, 1964.

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 215; reproduced in black and white, p. 160.

Read, Herbert. Contemporary British Art. Rev. Ed. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1964.

Tcheekle (Small Boîte de Fétiches)

1960 – 61

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

15 × 51/8 × 51/8 in. / 38 × 13 × 13 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 32.

Reg Butler: Sculpture and Drawings. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. July – September 1963. Cat. 9.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 30.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 217; reproduced in black and white, p. 160.

Tcheekle (The Tower that Grows in the Night)

1960 – 62

bronze, ed. 2 of 8

133/8 × 15 × 121/4 in. / 34 × 38 × 31 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Reg Butler: Recent Sculpture 1959 – 1962. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, New York, United States. October – November 1962. Cat. 33.

Reg Butler: Sculpture and Drawings. Hanover Gallery, London, United Kingdom. July – September 1963. Cat. 10.

The Gregory Fellows; Reg Butler, Martin Froy, Kenneth Armitage, Terry Frost, Hubert Dalwood, Alan Davie, Trevor Bell, Austin Wright. Arts Council Gallery, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 8 – 29 February 1964. Cat. 5.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 27.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 218; reproduced in black and white, p. 160.

Woman 1964

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

251/4 × 57/8 × 51/2 in. / 64 × 15 × 14 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 31.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd. Cat. 232; reproduced in black and white, p. 164.

Girl on a Round Base

1964

bronze, ed. 3 of 8

173/4 × 215/8 × 215/8 in. / 45 × 55 × 55 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection, 1991

Exhibited

Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom. 16 November 1983 – 15 January 1984. Cat. 64.

Reg Butler Musée Imaginaire: Bronze Middle and Later Period. Gimpel Fils, London, United Kingdom. 10 September – 11 October 1986. Cat. 23.

Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 24.

Reg Butler: Decent Sculpture. Gerhard Marcks Haus, Bremen, Germany. 26 November 2006 – 18 February 2007. Exhibition travelled to Museum Beelden

Aan Zee, Scheveningen, The Netherlands. 16 March – 17 June 2007.

Shaping a Century: Works by Modern British Sculptors. New Art Centre, Salisbury, United Kingdom. 6 February – 27 March 2016.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 235; reproduced in black and white, p. 165.

[30] Girl on a Round Base

1964

bronze, ed. 5 of 8

531/2 × 59 × 59 in. / 136 × 150 × 150 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection, 1991

Exhibited

Reg Butler Musée Imaginaire: Bronze Middle and Later Period. Gimpel Fils, London, United Kingdom. 10 September – 11 October 1986. Cat. 25. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 40, as ‘Girl on Wheel’.

Reg Butler: Decent Sculpture. Gerhard Marcks Haus, Bremen, Germany. 26 November 2006 – 18 February 2007. Exhibition travelled to Museum Beelden Aan Zee, Scheveningen, The Netherlands. 16 March – 17 June 2007.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 236; reproduced in black and white, fig. 82, p. 91.

Seated Girl 1965

bronze, unique

161/8 × 77/8 × 43/8 in. / 41 × 20 × 11 cm

Provenance Private Collection

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 233, p. 164.

1965

bronze, ed. 2 of 8

211/4 × 57/8 × 4 in. / 54 × 15 × 10 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection, 1991

Exhibited

Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom. 16 November 1983 – 15 January 1984. Cat. 65.

Reg Butler Musée Imaginaire: Bronze Middle and Later Period. Gimpel Fils, London, United Kingdom. 10 September – 11 October 1986. Cat. 33. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 33.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 238; reproduced in black and white, p. 165.

Head and Shoulders

1965

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

81/4 × 43/4 × 31/2 in. / 21 × 12 × 9 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection

Exhibited

Reg Butler Musée Imaginaire: Bronze Middle and Later Period. Gimpel Fils, London, United Kingdom. 10 September – 11 October 1986. Cat. 31. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 35.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 240; reproduced in black and white, p. 166.

Japanese Girl

1966

bronze, ed. 2 of 9

173/8 × 43/4 × 43/4 in. / 44 × 12 × 12 cm

Provenance

The Artist

Pierre Matisse Gallery

Acquavella Modern Art Private Collection, 1991

Exhibited

Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom. 16 November 1983 – 15 January 1984. Cat. 66.

Reg Butler Musée Imaginaire: Bronze Middle and Later Period. Gimpel Fils, London, United Kingdom. 10 September – 11 October 1986. Cat. 38. Galería Freites, Caracas, Venezuela. March – April 1992. Cat. 38.

Literature

Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006. Cat. 242; reproduced in black and white, p. 166.

Plates

[1] Bird, 1951 – 52

shell bronze, ed. 2 of 4

161/8 × 105/8 × 77/8 in. / 41 × 27 × 20 cm

[2] Rosamind Julius, 1951 – 52

shell bronze, ed. 2 of 4

167/8 × 63/4 × 85/8 in. / 43 × 17 × 22 cm

[3] Study for St Catherine, 1953

shell bronze and wire, unique

22 × 331/2 × 15 in. / 56 × 85 × 38 cm

[4] Study for Sculpture—St Catherine, 1953

shell bronze and wire, unique

113/4 × 173/4 × 77/8 in. / 30 × 45 × 20 cm

[5] Study for Third Watcher, 1954

bronze, ed. 6 of 8

283/8 × 173/4 × 105/8 in. / 72 × 45 × 27 cm

[6] Fetish, 1954

bronze, ed. 6 of 8

227/8 × 57/8 × 57/8 in. / 58 × 15 × 15 cm

[7] Study for Girl, 1954

bronze, unnumbered from edition of 8

215/8 × 9 × 9 in. / 55 × 23 × 23 cm

[8] Girl (Striding Girl), 1954

bronze, ed. 6 of 8

221/2 × 141/8 × 101/4 in. / 57 × 36 × 26 cm

[9] Manipulator, 1954 – 56

shell bronze, unnumbered edition of 6

707/8 × 281/8 × 201/8 in. / 180 × 71.5 × 51 cm

[10] Girl on Back, 2, 1956

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

9 × 97/8 × 43/8 in. / 23 × 25 × 11 cm

[11] Head and Shoulders (Arm Up), 1956

bronze, ed. 5 of 8

133/8 × 43/8 × 33/4 in. / 34 × 11 × 9.5 cm

[12] Woman in Stays, 1956

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

201/8 × 51/2 × 4 3/4 in. / 51 × 14 × 12 cm

[13] Woman, 1957 – 58

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

673/4 × 15 × 167/8 in. / 172 × 38 × 43 cm

[14] Figure in Space, 1957 – 59

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

571/8 × 61 × 393/8 in. / 145 × 155 × 100 cm

[15] Circus, 1959

bronze, ed. 5 of 8

207/8 × 57/8 × 51/2 in. / 53 × 15 × 14 cm

[16] Seated Girl, 1959 – 60

bronze, ed. 5 of 8

361/4 × 475/8 × 27 1/8 in. / 92 × 121 × 69 cm

[17] Study for Girl with a Vest, 1959

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

215/8 × 51/8 × 51/8 in. / 55 × 13 × 13 cm

[18] Girl 59 Chrysanthemum, 1959

bronze, ed. 8 of 8

211/4 × 57/8 × 51/8 in. / 54 × 15 × 13 cm

[19] Study for a Girl, 1959

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

133/8 × 4 × 43/4 in. / 34 × 10 × 12 cm

[20] Study for Figure Bending, 2, 1959

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

221/2 × 113/4 × 81/4 in. / 57 × 30 × 21 cm

[21] Study for Head of Circus, 1959

bronze, ed. 2 of 8

81/4 × 23/8 × 2 in. / 21 × 6 × 5 cm

[22] Study for the Italian Girl, 3, 1960

bronze, ed. 8 of 8

71/8 × 167/8 × 71/8 in. / 18 × 43 × 18 cm

[23] Cassandra, 1960

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

215/8 × 57/8 × 57/8 in. / 55 × 15 × 15 cm

[24] Bride, 1954 – 61

bronze, ed. 8 of 8

931/4 × 193/4 × 167/8 in. / 237 × 50 × 43 cm

[25] Macaw’s Head, 1960 – 62

bronze, ed. 5 of 8

393/8 × 201/8 × 145/8 in. / 100 × 51 × 37 cm

[26] Tcheekle (Small Boîte de Fétiches), 1960 – 61

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

15 × 51/8 × 51/8 in. / 38 × 13 × 13 cm

[27] Tcheekle (The Tower that Grows in the Night), 1960 – 62

bronze, ed. 2 of 8

133/8 × 15 × 121/4 in. / 34 × 38 × 31 cm

[28] Woman, 1964

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

251/4 × 57/8 × 51/2 in. / 64 × 15 × 14 cm

[29] Girl on a Round Base, 1964

bronze, ed. 3 of 8

173/4 × 215/8 × 215/8 in. / 45 × 55 × 55 cm

[30] Girl on a Round Base, 1964

bronze, ed. 5 of 8

531/2 × 59 × 59 in. / 136 × 150 × 150 cm

[31] Seated Girl, 1965

bronze, unique

161/8 × 77/8 × 43/8 in. / 41 × 20 × 11 cm

[32] Girl, 1965

bronze, ed. 2 of 8

211/4 × 57/8 × 4 in. / 54 × 15 × 10 cm

[33] Head and Shoulders, 1965

bronze, ed. 1 of 8

81/4 × 43/4 × 31/2 in. / 21 × 12 × 9 cm

[34] Japanese Girl, 1966

bronze, ed. 2 of 9

173/8 × 43/4 × 43/4 in. / 44 × 12 × 12 cm

A Sculptor’s Life

by Margaret Garlake

From The Sculpture of Reg Butler1

Reginald Cotterell Butler was born 28 April at Bridgefoot House, Buntingford, Hertfordshire, the only child of Frederic William Butler (1880 – 1937) and Edith Barltrop (d. 1969), the Master and Matron of a workhouse, which closed in 1935 when the family moved to Brookmans Park. Indulged by his parents, Butler grew up self-contained and authoritative, accepting no barrier to his desires. Although he was a dominant, sometimes difficult personality who believed that strength lay in never disclosing his problems, he had great charm and a penchant for black humour. Despite the strong religious atmosphere inculcated by his parents and his familiarity with the Bible, Butler became a deeply convinced atheist. His childhood experience of vagrants, sick and homeless people, and orphans fostered his strong sense of compassion and social justice.2 Until he was fourteen Butler was privately educated, incidentally learning carpentry and wood carving from Tom Body, the workhouse coffin maker whose portrait he painted.3 Asked in 1953 what had been his first wood carving, Butler replied that it was a ‘round wooden teapot stand’ made in his first term at Hertford Grammar School where he became a pupil in 1927.4 Here his lifelong interest in science began; he was to make a television set, various cameras and, around 1970, a shortwave radio that could receive the Atlanta police.

1933 – 9

Butler studied architecture at Regent Street Polytechnic 1933 – 6.5 His thesis was called Standardisation: its architectural significance. He was elected Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1937. Until war broke out, he worked as a tutor at the Architectural Association, meeting Denys Lasdun (1914 – 2001) and Maxwell Fry (1899 – 1987) and developing a long-sustained allegiance to the Modern Movement. He designed houses at Bushey (1935) and Great Munden (1939) and a clock tower for Slough Town Hall (1936)6 while pursuing a fine art practice. September 1938: he married Joan Child, from a farming family at Great Munden; their orchards provided wood for his carvings. The couple lived at The Bury, Great Munden where he made small lead sculptures, initiating a lifelong pattern of living and working in Hertfordshire. They established Hanpres Fabrics to produce hand-printed cloth from wood blocks that he carved. Through this decade and the 1940s, Butler read widely, especially in art, aesthetics, and philosophy. Herbert Read, Suzanne Langer, Sigmund Freud, and Adrian Stokes were the writers he most frequently acknowledged.

2 May 1939: as Cotterell Butler he set up an architectural partnership with Oscar A. Bayne at 90 Ebury Street, London, while undertaking miscellaneous design work: a display stand and an advertisement on the cover of J.M. Richards’s An Introduction to Modern Architecture for the London Brick Company, and lettering and a monogram for a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) exhibition, Health, Sport and Fitness. Between late 1939 and November 1941 he wrote 69 articles on prefabricated structures for the Builder, under the heading ‘Wartime building practice.’ On being assigned to the Parachute Regiment he was obliged, as a conscientious objector, to present his case to a tribunal. Helped by Ambrose Appelbee, a solicitor who worked with a number of pacifists, he avoided imprisonment despite the tribunal’s rejection of his arguments.

1941 – 5: the Butlers lived in a caravan on the grounds of a house belonging to Esme and Richard Strachey at Iping, West Sussex while running Lyfords Engineering Ltd.,7 repairing and making tools and spare parts for agricultural machinery. Later, this work led people to believe that Butler was a ‘village blacksmith,’ but its wartime value was acknowledged by a petrol allowance for a car. He also painted watercolours, made small woodcarvings, and wrote extensive notes on sculpture.8

1945 – 9

1945: the Butlers rented 3 Park Street, Hatfield where they lived until 1953; he briefly resumed architectural practice.

1946: he was appointed technical editor of Architectural Press, publisher of the Architectural Review and the Architect’s Journal, working three days a week to leave time for sculpture and life-drawing classes at Chelsea School of Art, Butler’s only sustained experience of life drawing. In later years drawing and sculpture were strictly separate activities practised at different times.

1947 – 50: he practised (as Building Services Ltd.) as architectural consultant for clients that included Poole Potteries, Ove Arup, and the London Brick Company. On a camping holiday shortly after the war’s end Butler photographed radar and radio towers at Bawdsey, Norfolk; the Butlers then began to make regular trips to north Cornwall.

Spring 1948: he was briefly an assistant to his neighbour Henry Moore (1898 – 1986). In the summer he started to make metal sculpture; the critic David Sylvester expressed interest in ‘how you have been torturing your bits of iron.’9

July 1949: Butler held the first of five solo exhibitions at the Hanover Gallery, London, adopting what he considered the less middle-class name, Reg Butler, to signal his identity as an artist.10

1950

1 June: he was appointed first Gregory Fellow in Sculpture at the University of Leeds on Moore’s recommendation.11 Eric Gregory was chairman of Lund Humphries, Honorary Treasurer of the ICA and founder of the Fellowships,12 a scheme reflecting his personal interests and affiliations, later described as ‘a highly selective, elitist form of patronage aimed at young avant-garde artists whose work was of an ‘abstract tendency.’13 The post carried a stipend but no formal teaching requirements until 1956.14 No applications were sought for the early Fellowships as ‘decisions were taken by Gregory and his advisors, [Herbert] Read, Moore, T.S. Elliot, and Bonamy Dobrée, Professor of English.’15 Read, a close friend of Moore, was a founder of the ICA, a prominent critic and selector of numerous exhibitions for the British Council. He was was extremely important to Butler both as a friend and in promoting his career.

22 July: despite the proviso that Fellows should be in residence, Butler informed the Registrar that he would be unable to live in Leeds between late September and March 1951, citing the need to work on his Festival of Britain commissions.16 Although he later extolled the ’supported freedom’ of the Fellowship as ‘a creative island,’17 it was an unsatisfactory episode. The postwar housing shortage made it difficult to find premises in Leeds, especially as forging was very noisy,18 so he continued to live in Hatfield.

Summer: he took a course at the British Oxygen Company’s welding school in Cricklewood, where he met Lynn Chadwick (1914 – 2003). The proceeds of the 1949 exhibition paid for oxyacetylene and arc welding equipment.

1951

Butler took part in the South Bank exhibition of the Festival of Britain, which brought publicity that he did not welcome.19 He experimented with shell bronze, and in the autumn started work on his entry for the Unknown Political Prisoner competition.20 Vigorously supported by William Coldstream (1908 – 1987), then at the end of his first year as Slade Professor of Fine Art and intent on restructuring teaching and the curriculum, Butler was appointed an assistant in the Sculpture Department at the

Slade School of Fine Art under Professor A.H. Gerrard, teaching one day a week. His 23 fellow assistants included Patrick George (1923 – 2016), Lucian Freud (1922 – 2011), Andrew Forge (1923 – 2002), and William Townsend (1909 – 1973).21 Students considered him glamorous and he was a good and encouraging listener, but he found teaching requirements stifling and, as sculpture became more demanding, too time-consuming.22 Among his students was the sculptor Rosemary Young (1930 – 2019), who became his lifelong companion, muse, and colleague. He led a very sociable life; friends included Gregory, Sylvester, Roland Penrose (1900 – 1984), Patrick Heron (1920 – 1999), Peter Lanyon (1918 – 1964), Anthony Kloman (1904 – 1993), Philip James of the Arts Council, colleagues at the Slade and many architects, although he was less close to sculptors of his own generation. Visiting St Ives during the early summer, he met the resident artists who found the ‘clash of vocabularies’ very stimulating.23

1952

May: Butler took part in the Venice Biennale, the start of his fame and critical acclaim and the period when he was most closely engaged with colleagues and events in the art world.

26 May: following a back injury that precluded heavy physical work, Butler told Gregory that he still wished to go to Leeds

a) because I feel I have yet to make my contribution to the scheme and b) (more selfishly) because it means more time for sculpture than any alternative. But what do you personally want...Would you prefer me to stand down...If it makes all the difference I see no reason why I shouldn’t confine myself to ‘silent sculpture’ while there, since I have now been forced by the disc to work in clay etc.24

August: Butler was appointed to a third Fellowship year, freeing him to work on the Unknown Political Prisoner maquette, although he remained unreconciled to leaving Hatfield:

I rattle between Leeds & Hatfield these days, it’s rather irritating but as the fellowship ends next summer it’s not worth moving from here [Hatfield] entirely.25

26 August: with Barbara Hepworth (1903 – 1975), Butler took part in Artists on Art on the BBC Third Programme; he broadcasted intermittently until 1963, including sessions of the Brainstrust 26

December: the Oracle, 1952 commissioned for Hatfield Technical College, was unveiled; two months later it was daubed with blue paint. In her fourth year at the Slade (1952 – 3) Young became Butler’s assistant, taking a studio at Harrow-on-the-Hill where she cast all the work for his 1954 Hanover Gallery exhibition. She also worked with him in the Hatfield foundry, playing a very significant role in the production of the studio, including lithography, for which Butler made a press.

1953

13 March: Butler was proclaimed winner of the Unknown Political Prisoner competition. Among many letters of congratulation, he treasured one from Marino Marini (1901 – 1980).27 Others came from fellow artists, dealers, suppliers of wire, a nun needing a donation, a woman wishing to sell a painting, and his old headmaster. The prize and the opportunity that it would give to buy a secluded country house effected a fundamental change in Butler’s life and working habits, although a decade later he commented: ‘I think that the whole thing stands right outside my career as a sculptor.’28 The Butlers rented a house at 8 Bell’s Yard, Hatfield.

1954

The Unknown Political Prisoner maquette and related studies were shown at the Venice Biennale. With his £4,250 prize Butler bought a listed Tudor house near Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, where he spent the rest of his life, with ample studio space, sculpture yards, and a Modern Movement extension that he designed. Visitors flocked to the studio as he sought to expand his sales, although their desire to buy direct from the artist sometimes caused problems.29 Young continued to do all the casting in Harrow.

1955

July – September: Butler exhibited in Documenta 1 at Kassel, soon to become Europe’s most prestigious serial exhibition.

1956

Young joined the Butlers in the Berkhamsted house, where they all lived together until Butler’s death.

July: visitors included J.T. Soby, introduced by Michael Greenwood of the Hanover Gallery, who began to

Reg Butler at work in his studio © The Estate of Reg Butler

compile a systematic photographic record of all sculpture allocated a studio number.

23 November: Butler declined an invitation to teach at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg in 1956 although he evidently agreed to a request to exhibit at the Galerie Springer to coincide with the anticipated erection of the Unknown Political Prisoner monument in Berlin.30

1956 and 1957: summer holidays were spent in the south of France. About this time Butler decorated a wedding cake for Philip and Bertha James’s daughter.

1957

April – May: Butler’s solo exhibition at the Rotterdamsche Kunstring, Rotterdam, repeated at the Hanover Gallery, demanded an immense amount of preparation, both to make new sculpture and to cast editions of work already sold.

July – September: Butler visited Berlin for discussions on the Unknown Political Prisoner monument. He indulged his love of cars by exchanging his Volkswagen Beetle for a racing-green Jensen 541.

1958

January: Butler took part in a discussion, Architecture and the other arts at the RIBA.31

Easter: Butler and Young took part in the first Aldermaston march.

21 April: a daughter, Cortina, was born to Young, adding family responsibilities to an excessive workload caused as much by Butler’s extraordinarily high standards as by the need to sell work. His attempt to find an assistant to make moulds and armatures in Young’s place failed as he would allow no one else to work in the studio.

June: Vera Farrant was employed to help in the house, freeing Young for studio work. Personal and professional life became increasingly isolated. Although his advice and presence were widely solicited, Butler usually refused local invitations and those involving long-term commitment, pleading lack of time. However, he still engaged with architecture and entertained numerous visiting sculptors, often introduced by the British Council. Invited to serve on the jury for the Dachau memorial, he accepted but rapidly reversed his decision, citing ‘particulars of the competition’ which made it impossible for him to act on the jury, although his withdrawal may well have been prompted by his workload.32 He declined an invitation to succeed John Skeaping (1901 – 1980) as Professor of Sculpture at the

Royal College of Art.33 Butler wrote a detailed account of his entry in the Unknown Political Prisoner competition.34

1959

February: Butler spoke at the Building Centre on Le Corbusier’s (1887 – 1965) Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp, of which he disapproved, believing that it departed from the Modernism of the 1930s. Butler corresponded with Selden Rodman, an artist and collector in the United States, and Bo Boustedt, a Swedish architect and collector. Rodman owned work by Jean Dubuffet (1901 – 1985) and Joan Miró (1893 – 1983), suggesting an interest in Surrealism, but pleading poverty, asked Butler only for photographs and appears to have acquired no sculpture.35 Boustedt had seen Butler’s work in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and at Middelheim in 1959. Principally interested in British and Swedish contemporary sculpture, he was enthused by Butler’s ‘figure-studies,’ especially the ‘bodies in space.’36 He acquired several works including Figure in Space, 1957 –8, which he exchanged for the Woman in Stays, 1956.37 In a notebook Butler revealed his anxiety about his practice: 30 years ago there was modern art and there was establishment art and there was often cause for anger. But the angry man of 1959 combats only a vacuum… What happens next? Where do we go from here? 38

1960

1 March: Boustedt visited the studio.

18 April: a son, Creon, was born to Young. Butler was a devoted father although relentless work left little time for leisure or travel, other than brief visits to the foundry in Paris and an annual family holiday at Treyarnon Bay, Cornwall. He told an interviewer: ‘I do have the feeling of being who I am most of when I am making sculpture. The activity has become such a part of my life that I only really recognize myself in the kind of working clothes that I wear in my studio.’39

June – July: he held a solo exhibition at the Hanover Gallery.

25 July: John Read’s 1958 film, The Artist Speaks: Reg Butler was shown on BBC television.

August: Franklin Page, director of the Speed Art Museum in Kentucky, visited Berkhamsted.

24 September: Butler visited Rotterdam and then Stockholm for the opening of his exhibition at Gummessons Konstalleri.

October: his membership of the Committee of 100, founded by Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970) within the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament ‘for civil disobedience against nuclear warfare,’40 was confirmed. Butler felt as strongly about the Committee as about his wartime tribunal, yet soon withdrew, disapproving of its appeal for student support and its preference for protest over ideological persuasion,41 although he remained sympathetic to the cause. This was his only moment of political activism although he consistently supported the Labour Party and considered it his duty to vote on every possible occasion. Felix Man (1893 – 1985), the well-known photojournalist and specialist in the history of lithography, informed Butler that he had persuaded the City of Frankfurt to buy a cast of Figure in Space, 1958 – 9 and hoped to place works elsewhere. Man also organised the production in Germany of a portfolio of Butler’s lithographs, of which he had a personal collection.42

1961

4 December: Quentin Bell, on behalf of the University of Leeds, invited Butler, who declined, to make a portrait bust of the Princess Royal, Chancellor of the University.

October – January 1962: by invitation, Butler had a small one-man exhibition within the Pittsburgh International Exhibition, although his compulsion to work obsessively on a single piece had a visibly adverse effect when he was unable to supply examples of recent sculpture for this prestigious occasion.43

1962

A self-directed query: ‘Develop a style and not become fed up with it?’ indicates his frustration with sculpture.44 Creative Development: Five Lectures to Art Students was published and well received. Read expressed his pleasure on observing ‘how much discussion your little book is provoking in the Press.’45

December: Philip Ward offered to print 700 copies of Butler’s Selected Poems; Butler considered the offer but took no further action.46 He made drawings and gave a great deal of thought to lithography and colour.

which, Butler later remarked, was unconvincing: ‘at halfcock,’47 he became increasingly insecure about his work, isolating himself in the studio and leaving mail unopened. The pattern persisted for the rest of his life as he worked and wrote obsessively, although he made occasional visits to the Sainsbury and Kreitman families who were collectors of his work. Regular visitors included his dealers in London and New York, Erica Brausen and Pierre Matisse, American friends and collectors, Leslie and Rosamind Julius, the photographer Paul Schwarz, Ludwig Glaser, the curator of architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and writers—people with whom Butler could discuss matters other than sculpture as he did not wish to admit visitors to the studio, being wary of adverse comments.

October – December: Butler’s only lifetime retrospective took place at the Speed Art Museum, organised by Page. Writing to Read, Butler lamented his isolation and lack of opportunity to exchange ideas informally, summarising his dilemmas:

I work very hard—all the time now it is the only possibility. Time is so short there is so much to be done, and everything takes so long...I am very lucky—in all things, and yet all the time I say when I get this sculpture or this drawing ‘right’ I will do this and that and see this and that and protest about this and that yet the thing never gets ‘right’ so none of these things get done.48

1964

August: Young was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent six months in University College Hospital. Butler found life very difficult during her absence and made little sculpture.

1965

March: Young returned, fully recovered; Butler noted, ‘Much thinking occasioned by R’s return and talk of Freud etc.’49 Butler was elected to the Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, visiting Brussels for the ceremony.

1966

1963

April: Butler ordered cabinets for the Musée Imaginaire, 1961 – 2, from C. S. Everett, Berkhamsted. Following the unenthusiastic reception of his Hanover Gallery exhibition

Butler attended the International Symposium on Fine Arts in the East and the West, in Tokyo, 7 – 12 March, organised by the Japanese Commission for UNESCO, where he gave a paper on the reception of contemporary art. Japan fascinated him as the only place that he had visited that was sufficiently far away to be unlike

Europe. He made several works based on a model, Makoto Okoyama, whom he met during his visit. He became Director of Sculpture Studies at the Slade, with responsibility for post-graduate students. Among them were Tony Cragg (b. 1949), Michael Kenny (1941 – 1999), and John Davies (b. 1946), who became valued friends.

1967

Under pressure from Brausen, Butler showed Study for Girl on Back in the Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, after which no new work left the studio until 1970. Notebooks reveal his disturbed frame of mind as he veered from one idea to another, trying to define a new approach to sculpture. Visitors were no longer invited to the house as Butler would allow no one but Young into the studio, where conditions were unappealing, with no extraction system for resin dust or paint and acetone fumes. The door to the house was boarded up and the children were excluded from the studio for several years.

1968

June: Invited by Misha Black, Butler sat on a jury to select two pieces of sculpture by artists under 35 for Woolgate House in the City of London.50

1969 – 70

Studio work was unrelenting as the painted bronzes developed. Despite considerable pressure from Brausen and Matisse to hold another exhibition, Butler refused to do so before showing the first painted bronze in the 1970 Pittsburgh International, which he may have considered more prestigious than his dealers’ galleries. Butler began to make the large drawings of nudes that would continue throughout the decade. When he was drawing his family had greater access to the studio, which was occasionally cleared for memorable children’s parties. He developed numerous enthusiasms incorporating his children’s interests as displacement activities: archery, mask making, digging clay in the garden, short wave radio—always reusing old components whenever possible.

1973

March: Butler visited New York for the opening of the exhibition of the four large painted bronzes at the Pierre Matisse Gallery. He began to think about making similar, smaller figures and drawings.

1974

16 January: Butler took part in A Tribute to Jacob Bronowski: 1908 – 1974 at Broadcasting House, London.

22 January: Lorna Peagram’s film on the painted bronzes, Reg Butler, was shown on BBC television.

15 October: he refused an invitation from the British Council to visit Perth in February 1975 for a week of lectures and workshops.51

1975

Butler exhibited two painted bronzes in Holland Park, London.

1977

June – September: Butler exhibited Battersea Sculpture in the Silver Jubilee Exhibition, Battersea Park, London. Towards the end of the decade he returned to lithography, hoping to work with Stanley Jones (Curwen Press) but not even he was able to satisfy Butler’s aspirations.

1978

12 February: Butler attended an ICA debate, The State of British Art as a member of a panel on Images of People, with Lisa Tickner, Josef Herman, and Victor Burgin.52 He ceased to be Slade Director of Studies.

1979

March: Creon and Cortina Butler gave the Working Model for the Monument for the Unknown Political Prisoner, 1955 – 6 to the Tate Gallery.

1980

11 November: Butler gave the William Townsend lecture, The Venus of Lespugue and Other Naked Ladies, at University College, London after prolonged preparation. He won the Grand Prize at the 1st Kataro Takamuro Exhibition at the Open Air Museum, Hakone, Japan, for Bending Girl, 1968 – 71.

1981

January: Butler resigned from the RIBA.

Summer: he agreed that the Galería Freites, Caracas would acquire the six small painted bronzes. Although he was unwell the family went on holiday to Treyarnon.

23 October: Butler died at home in Berkhamsted and was cremated at Amersham Crematorium.

December: The Galería Freites confirmed its order; Young completed the prototypes and had the bronzes cast by Burleighfield Arts Ltd.

1984

November – January: memorial exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London. Butler had discussed a retrospective with Alan Bowness before his death.

1989

August: Following the death of Pierre Matisse, the Galería Freites acquired all Butler’s work remaining in the gallery, including the painted bronzes.

2002

Tate acquired Girl on a Round Base, 1968 – 72.

1 Garlake, Margaret. The Sculpture of Reg Butler. Much Hadam and Aldershot: The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries Ltd., 2006, pp. 11 – 28.

2 Letter from Rosemary Young, 7 April 2005.

3 Butler’s portrait of Body is reproduced in Richard Calvocoressi, Reg Butler, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1983, p. 73, no. 80. In writing this chapter I have relied heavily on Calvocoressi’s text and Rosemary Young’s recorded interview: ‘Rosemary Butler interviewed by Gillian Whiteley’, National Life Story Collection, C466/94, British Library, London.

4 L. M. Baker, letter to Butler, 19 March 1953; Butler to Baker, undated but 1953.

5 Polytechnic School of Architecture, Surveying and Building.

6 The architects were C. H. James & Bywaters and Roland Pierce.

7 The business address was Millard, Liphook, Hampshire.

8 See folder, ‘West Sussex 1944 – 1945’.

9 David Sylvester, letter to Butler, 15 July 1948.

10 Some uncertainty persisted since a Berkhamsted letterhead (undated but after 1953) reads ‘Cotterell Butler, Cast, Forged and Welded Sculpture’.

11 J. V. Loach (Registrar, University of Leeds), letter to Butler, 22 May 1950.

12 For an account of the early Gregory Fellowships see Marian Williams, ‘A measure of leaven’; the early Gregory Fellowships at the University of Leeds in Margaret Garlake (ed.), Artists and Patrons in Post War Britain, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2001, pp. 55 – 93.

13 Ibid, p. 59.

14 Ibid, p. 74.

15 Ibid, p. 60.

16 Butler, letter to Loach, 22 July 1950.

17 Reg Butler, Creative Development: Five Lectures to Art Students, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962, pp. 7, 71.

18 He wished to live and work on the same premises. The University was prepared to have a studio built but controls precluded provision of new living space; Vice Chancellor, letter to Gregory, 17 February 1951.

19 Tate Gallery, Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions 1978 – 80, London: Tate Gallery Publications Dept, 1981, p. 76.

20 Ibid.

21 See James Hyman, The Battle for Realism: Figurative Art in Britain during the Cold War 1945 – 1960, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2001, p. 64 and no. 161, p. 225.

22 On Butler’s ‘charisma’, see Bruce Laughton, William Coldstream, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2001, p. 163.

23 Patrick Heron, letter to Butler, 19 June 1951, TGA 8412.3.

24 Butler, draft letter to Gregory, 26 May 1952.

25 Butler, letter to M. A. Regan, 10 December 1952.

26 For a full list of Butler’s broadcasts see Calvocoressi, Reg Butler, 1983, p. 88.

27 25 April 1953.

28 ‘Reg Butler on his life and work: an interview with Francis Watson’, Listener, vol. 69, no. 1774, 28 March 1963, p. 551.

29 See Butler, draft letter to Brausen, undated but June 1959.

30 Werner Haftmann, letter to Butler, 23 November 1956; Rudolf Springer, letter to Butler, 28 May 1956.

31 See RIBA Journal, February 1958.

32 Butler, letters to the Comité internationale de Dachau, 14 and 29 April 1958.

33 Robin Darwin, letter to Butler, 12 May 1958. The post was taken by Bernard Meadows.

34 It is extensively quoted in Tate Gallery, Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions 1978 – 80, pp. 72 – 82.

35 Selden Rodman, letter to Butler, 15 March 1959.

36 Bo Boustedt, letters to Butler, 4 September and 29 October 1959.

37 Ibid 26 April 1962.

38 Small notebook, dated 1959.

39 ‘Did you hear that?’, transcript of BBC radio talk, Listener, vol. 64, no. 1637, 11 August 1960, p. 213.

40 Bertrand Russell, letter to Butler, 26 September 1960.

41 Draft letter to the Manchester Guardian, undated; Butler, letter to Pat Arrowsmith, 16 June 1961.

42 Felix Man, letter to Butler, 7 November 1960.

43 Gordon Washburn, letter to Butler, 10 August 1961.

44 Small notebook, dated February 1962 – November 1963.

45 Read, letter to Butler, 30 December 1962.

46 Butler, draft letter to Philip Ward, undated but late 1962; Ward, letter to Butler, 8 January 1963.

47 Butler, letter to Brausen, 1 October 1971. It contained only sixteen sculptures, compared with 35 in the 1962 Pierre Matisse Gallery exhibition, while Butler’s brief foreword was extracted from the correspondence with Franklin Page published in the 1962 Pierre Matisse Gallery catalogue.

48 Butler, letter to Herbert Read, undated but early 1963, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Special Collections.

49 Notebook, dated March 1965.

50 See Philip Ward – Jackson, Public Sculpture of the City of London, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003, pp. 83 – 4.

51 Major D. W. Brandon, letter to Butler, 15 October 1974.

52 See Studio International, 2/78, vol. 194, no. 989, p. 132 for Butler’s statement.

Portrait of Reg Butler © The Estate of Reg Butler

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